The beginning, continued.

Have you ever felt like something was missing, even though you had no idea what it was, if it really was, or how it could be missing? Not something small, like a sock...though I do often wonder where all my kid's socks go or why I only ever have one hairbow out of a set, but I'm talking about something bigger. Something missing from your life.

As a little girl, I often daydreamed of a different life than the one I had. A life filled with the parents all my friends had. A dad that would embarrass them while I was over at their house. A mom that cut their sandwiches into hearts and tucked a napkin with the words, "have a great day at school!" in their lunch. My friends came home from school and showed off the things they made and talked about who sat by who during the school assembly. I came home from school and hid from my father, took care of my little brother, cleaned the house and sometimes started dinner. My friends would go off to their after school activities, ballet, gymnastics, basketball, soccer. I had to make sure my little brother did his homework and that my father had clean socks. My friends would sit around at the dinner table, talking about their day, which was probably boring and uncool to them but it fascinated me. They would call their friends on their pink, sparkly phone and lay on their bellies on the bed. I could only have phone calls between a certain time and only while sitting on the floor in the living room, with my father sitting in his chair asking for another beer. Yeah, that something missing was definitely another life. I had to have one somewhere, but I settled for the made up one in my dreams.